Most controversial companies 2016

ZURICH: January 25, 2017. Business intelligence and risk consulting company RepRisk has published its Most Controversial Companies 2016 (MCC 2016) report. In his introduction, RepRisk CEO Philipp Aeby says it is worth noting that eight of those listed faced governance-related issues involving corruption and fraud, and only two were linked to environmental and social controversies:

"Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), ranks as the most controversial company of 2016, as it was rocked by a corruption scandal involving Malaysia’s prime inister, Najib Razak.

Global investigators suspect that Razak used 1MDB to embezzle an estimated US$1 billion.

The Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co ranks as the second most controversial company in 2016, due to continued investigations into the “Panama Papers,” a leak of more than 11.5 million financial records related to wealthy individuals and public officials, which exposed the company’s use of secretive offshore companies to help their clients launder money, avoid taxes, and evade international sanctions.

Samarco Mineração, a Brazilian mining company, which ranked third on RepRisk’s MCC 2015 Report due to the collapse of its tailings dam in November 2015, is ranked again in the MCC 2016 Report, as a result of criticisms and lawsuits related to its handling of the tragedy.

The Korean companies Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) Co Ltd and Lotte Group, as well as Monaco-based Unaoil, and Brazil’s Odebrecht were all involved in corruption scandals throughout 2016. Rizal Commercial Banking Corp in the Philippines was linked to a USD multi-million international money-laundering scheme related to a cyber theft of almost US$1 billion from accounts owned by the Central Bank of Bangladesh.

The Chinese company Jiangsu Changlong Chemicals Co Ltd was blamed for multiple incidents of poisoning among students at a school in Changzhou, after a November 2015 discovery that the company had secretly buried toxic waste at a former production site near the town.

Finally, Volkswagen is once again included in this year’s MCC Report as throughout the year the company continued to face new allegations and lawsuits related to the emissions scandal that erupted in September 2015."

- RepRisk specializes in environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk analytics and metrics. Its latest report includes other 'losers' in each sector: Most_controversial_companies_2016.pdf